Vietnam Tourism: Better Publicity

3:25:39 PM | 7/16/2007

The Vietnam Tourism Association organised a ceremony to honour the 20 best international travel titles and best hotel titles in Vietnam in 2006 in Hanoi on July 9, 2007. On the sidelines of the award ceremony, Mr Nguyen Phu Duc, Chairman of Vietnam Tourism Association, revealed some information about the awards and the development of Vietnam tourism.

What criteria did the Vietnam Tourism Association employ to evaluate and select the top ten hotels and travel firms?

The top criteria are that candidates do not violate the law, have healthy business, high efficiency and have a wide range of tourism products and services. In addition, candidates must ensure food safety and hygiene and carry out effective professional and foreign language training programmes for their employees.

Is there any difference in selecting titles this year from previous years?

With the spirit of bringing the awards closer to the public, we built a system to select excellent hotels and travel firms on Dan Tri online newspaper. There are also three awards on specific themes, namely an award for the best conference and seminar service, an award for the friendliest staff and an award for most attractive public relations activity. This year, Melia Hanoi Hotel, Hoi An Pacific Hotel and Saigontourist won these three awards.

One of the criteria is the diversity of tourism products. However, did most candidates fail to meet this criterion?

Tourism products are very important. Vietnam is in the first process of developing tourism; thus, its tourism products are not diversified and their attractiveness and competitiveness are not high. Therefore, this is a vital content for the Vietnam tourism sector. A few products are also acceptable, but their attractiveness and competitiveness must be high. Only then, can the Vietnamese tourism sector intensify tourism popularisation activities.

What do you think about the popularisation of Vietnam tourism and trademarks abroad in the past years?

Frankly, Vietnam is still weak in this issue although its tourism industry has tried to advertise its trademark. First, tourism products are undiversified, and second the financial capacity is not strong. Normally, a country can spend US$40-50 million on advertisement but Vietnam has been unable to do so. The Vietnamese tourism industry has tried its best to organise trade fairs and shows to introduce Vietnam tourism in other countries. Vietnam has also opened tourism offices in more than 50 countries worldwide and asked overseas Vietnamese, commerce chambers and embassies to help advertise Vietnam tourism. In spite of the existing weakness, the popularisation of Vietnam tourism and trademarks is increasing.

Top-ten hotel list